10/9/13

Dharma Talk, September 23, 2013: Tathagatagarbha, Continued

We’re going to continue a little bit more about theTathagatagarbha andPrajnaparamita.
Part of this is trying out some material that I’m going to take with me
to Michigan and it's a continuation of what we've been working with. I
want to start a little bit about historically where these Prajnaparamita
texts come from and bring up two new groups for you that exist way back
in the dawning of Buddhism and the splintering off of Mahayana from the
Theravada teachings.

One of them is calledDharmaguptaka.
This particular group was one of the 18 or 20 early Buddhist schools
that came into being. They were up in the northwestern part of India and
Central Asia. In this particular part, there were two main
(prajnaparamita) sutras; one of them is known as the 100,000 Line Sutra
and the 25,000 lines Sutra. This particular group came from the Mahisasakas; this is a little bit different from the Mahasamghikagroup.
They were part of the very first ones to begin to use Prajnaparamita in
terms of the study and departed a little bit from the idea of the
Theravada practice of achieving Nirvana.

There was another group called Caitikas whose
sect was from Southern India. This group actually branched off from the
Mahasamghika group around first and second BC.
Their doctrine was one where they had the ideal of a bodhisattva over
the idea of an Arhat. An Arhat is someone who has attained or reached
Nirvana. Their Mahasamghika doctrine of Mulavijnana, root consciousness, is essentially the same as the Yogacara School’s Alayavijnana. Whenever you hear Mula, it means root. They were trying to look at what this root is, what mind is.

There
was of a study of reversing the way one looks at things so that we're
not just looking at our conduct and morality and ethics but they were
truly trying to study what mind is. This is something that is very
important in terms of this kind of transitional period where Theravada
was looking for reaching nirvana, where there was this change where the
purpose of the practice is to look deeply into how mind works. This was
critical in terms of how someone would look at it like somebody saying,
“Okay this is how these things came to be” and people pick it up and
start practicing saying, “If I do this, this will happen.”

But
instead the orientation was “How does this all work? How does this come
into play?” And by using that kind of the right view of obtaining a
realization, a direct experience of this right view wisdom became more
critical at that point. I’ll read a little bit of it:

“A
number of scholars have proposed that the Mahayana Prajnaparamita
teachings were first developed by the Caitika subset of the
Mahasamghikas.”

And
at this point they also were discussing or introducing the development
of the thoughts
about the Tathagatagarbha Sutra. As we’ve discussed before, the
Tathagatagarbha Sutras delved into the notions of emptiness and of
Prajnaparamita and the introduction of Bodhisattvas in general. The
bodhisattvas did not come into play in the Theravada other than in the
reference to the Shakyamuni Buddha prior to his achieving enlightenment.

In China there becamefour great bodhisattvas: Avalokitesvara,Samantabhadra,Manjusri, and
Ksitigarbha. These were the four main bodhisattvas that were
introduced. Avalokitesvara, we’ve run into before, is the Guanyin
bodhisattva we talked about last week introducing him to the practice
from the Theravada.

Today we're going to go over to seeManjusri.
Manjusri is the bodhisattva related to wisdom. The name itself means
“gentle glory.” The gentleness there was depicted in the manner in which
the bodhisattva Manjusri discusses the Dharma with the Buddha and
Subhuti and Sariputra, with a very soft but very precise and clear
manner. It brings one to the introduction of this Prajnaparamita,
particularly the Mahaprajnaparamita, this deep, very deep paramita. Prajna means “wisdom;” paramita meaning “to practice”.

As
one goes into the practice, we discover that not only is there wisdom
but there is a deeper wisdom that one develops from the practice. From
the development, the utilization, and the seeking of that wisdom, that
wisdom then is tempered like hard steel through the constant working on
it and working it and working it, until one day, that wisdom produces
what they call the “Sword of Wisdom.” This sword is so sharp and so
powerful it’s able to cut through all illusions.

We've
talked before about the illusions that come up, the ideas of vexations.
The biggest and strongest delusion is the illusion of the ego,
personality, or life in being which is assaulted by the Diamond Sutra.
In the Diamond Sutra, notions of self are cut through and notions of
anything where one may abide in are also cut through. So there is this
critical idea of “non-abiding.” It
sounds really good - non-abiding, but do we really know what that
means? Do we take it to heart what non-abiding is?

Before
the class today, Rick was saying that in his everyday life, he's been
utilizing this quietness of the practice, of staying in the present
moment, of just simply performing the
functions. This is a non-abiding mind. The more he does that without
thinking that he's doing anything or abiding in non-abiding, then his
practice will be clearer. It is in this way and it is able to stand up
and become a very fearless practice.

A
lot of times, we run into situations that bring us
right to the idea of our own mortality. I've asked this question before
but how many of you are afraid of dying, raise your hands please? A
couple of you; you’re no longer afraid of dying? You used to be. Okay,
it's a very interesting thing this fear of dying. But as we begin to
practice more and more, we've got some people here of mature years and
they didn’t raise their hands, you know. You look at it and you see
things clear. You see it from a fearless point of view and you see it
from the idea of the Buddhadharma. And as we begin to see things in this
way, we no longer become attached to this skin-bag and worry about its
outcome because most certainly, it's going to pass away. Master Sheng
Yen used to say, “We only have a finite amount of breaths to take, so we
should make them count.” This is really wisdom and as we begin to
practice in seeking wisdom, that is wisdom in itself.

These ideas of the Tathagatagarbha or Mahaprajnaparamita,
they’re really not so deep and unfathomable. We make them unfathomable
through the ignorance of attaching and abiding; abiding in ourselves, in
our ego, in our personality or a life in being. That is the crux of the
matter. Without abiding in the ego, a self, personality, or a life in
being, then all the vexations that we have are merely secondary
vexations. They’re not the primary vexations that we talked about last
week of nescience entrenchment and primary and secondary vexations. But
the main vexation is the idea that “I” am thinking.

We
use this mind and there's no doubt, we cannot say we do not have
thoughts. We have thoughts but the difference is that when one is
engaged in no-thought, there's no attachment to thought, even no
attachment to no-thought. That is just simply is this way. All of the Mahaprajnaparamita and the Tathagatagarbha Sutras ring in the same refrain; very simple,
very clear.

Initially
they sound very insurmountable and ungraspable. It's true because they
say “Don’t try to grasp it. Don’t try to grasp what is being presented
here. If you try to grasp it, you'll corrupt it. You will lose it.” But
one nevertheless explores it and uses it. We have to
bring the mind back to its original operating program. In this original
operating program, there was not the notion of a self, or ego, or
personality, or a life in being. But in Buddhadharma and Mahayana
practice, they salvaged the idea of a self-nature of mind but it's not
the same as what we use.

What we use and what we believe is our self-nature that could be
likened to seeing an automobile in a movie. It looks like a car and you
see the people driving it but really it's not the proper vehicle for
you. It's not the right vehicle. What it is, is an illusion, but because
we've watched it so much. We believed it to be real.

So
there is this transcendental wisdom; the wisdom that enables us to see
through the illusion, see through the grasping, see through the abiding.
As we begin to use this type of transcendental wisdom, it converts each
moment to a moment of wisdom so that we are no longer viewing this
moment in a state of duality, of subject and object. But we say, “How do
we do that?” Conceptually, we cannot do that. There's no possible way
that we can do that. We have to transcend the idea of this dualistic
thinking, that “I” am doing this, to “this is how mind works.”

How
does the mind work? Everything is there. Everything is clear.
Everything is appearing in accordance with causes and conditions, what
we call Paticcasamuppada. Paticcasamuppada
is the nature of mind itself. It is how mind works. What more do you
want? There is nothing that you can take away or pick up. It's just the
way it works but it’s brutal on the ego because the ego has spent so
much time fabricating a notion, ingraining this physical body with the
idea of the necessity of ego, of the necessity of a life in being. It’s
imprinted it in us as soon as we took our first breath. It is already
there. The whole idea is we just never see that. We could never break
away from it. So we
are condemned to live life in this skin-bag. (I better say something
positive or you guys might get bummed out).

The
hope is that you use the skin-bag as a manner of practice so that there
can be this transcendence in mind. Then when we look at it and we say,
“None of these makes sense,” well,
let's see how much of these doesn't make sense then.

Going
back to Manjusri because he’s the main proponent in what we’re talking
about, he is a Bodhisattva in the Mahayana and the Vajrayana tradition
so the Tibetans use Manjusri quite a bit. He embodies enlightened
wisdom. He is not mentioned
at all in the Pali Scriptures. Manjusri is first referred to in the
early Mahayana texts such as the Prajnaparamita Sutra essentially as the
embodiment of wisdom or the embodiment of prajna.

So
he is going to be one that's going to be popping up and if you see the
statue of him, generally he's
holding a sword in his hand representing the sword of wisdom. Master
Sheng Yen’s first English book was actually entitled The Sword of
Wisdom.

I want to talk to you about a very early Mahayana Sutra calledMahaprajnaparamita Manjusriparivarta Sutra. In this sutra there is a dialogue between the Manjusri and the Buddha as well as Sariputra coming in and out. He says:

“I
contemplate the Tathagata’s appearance of suchness and nothing else:
neither moving
nor acting, without birth and without death, neither existing nor void,
neither here nor away, neither in the Three Times nor apart from the
Three Times, neither dual nor non-dual, and neither impure nor pure.
Such is the correct contemplation of the Tathagata for the benefits of
sentient beings.”

The
Buddha told Manjusri, “If one is able to perceive the Tathagata thusly,
then the mind has nothing to grasp nor not grasp, and neither
accumulates nor does not accumulate.”

It’s
a very interesting language because we go, “Please, give me anything to
choose from!” The ego wants to do that. It wants to settle into
something. It wants to settle and say, “Ahh, emptiness… Everything is
emptiness. That’s all I see!” Is that the correct view? No, because one
is abiding in emptiness. It's neither empty nor non-empty, but that's
what makes it empty. It’s a different way of looking at things that
cannot be grasped by the self.

It's
kind of interesting because this reminded me of the saying of how one
should act. One master said, “You should behave as if you have guests in
front of you at all times when you're in your home; and when you have
guests, you should behave as if you were in your home by yourself.” So
you say “which one is it?” It's both but it’s neither. It's just this
wisdom of being able to
know that there is this truth there. We do not act in one way or
another when people are not around. We don't go around doing things that
we should not be doing. Likewise when guests are there, we should not
try to impress them or pontificate while you do whatever you do with
them.

It
is this
middle ground of the Madhyamaka School and it’s this middle ground
without middle ground. It's neither this way nor that way nor
in-between. It just is. This is the message of the very deep Prajnaparamita – non-abiding. It was essentially all that the Prajnaparamita Sutra and the Tathagatagarbha Sutras
emphasize, the idea of non-abiding and having one simply be in the
void. The void or emptiness is a very pessimist type of a viewpoint. I
don't think shunyata is
the same idea of emptiness as the word empty in terms of the English
language. When we say it's devoid of something, it’s devoid of
individual characteristics. An individual characteristic would be
something that is permanent. It's not saying it's devoid of anything.

If
I went over to Stan and put my arm around him and said, “You're a good
person,” he might feel a certain way. If I punched him in the arm, he
might feel a certain way. It is not devoid of those feelings. Those
feelings are there but nevertheless we're clear that all those feelings
are occurring in mind and they have no individual characteristics. Like
if I hit him today and next week I apologize, where is the permanence in
any of that? So it does not negate apparent reality but it doesn't say
apparent reality is real.

The difference is in deep Prajnaparamita,
everything is perceived occurring nowhere but in mind and all
appearances are seen as appearances that are transitory. It is seen by
the permanent mind and one is clear about that. That's the difference.
So we don't have to push everything out of the way. If we did, where
would we send them to? If I wanted to push you all out away, cast you
all out of the room, then what? I’d still have a carpet. I’d have to
send it out too and then the ceiling and what else? The sound of the
bell, I’d have to send that out. That's too much work.

Chan
is very easy; actually very, very easy. What drew me in to Chan was the
idea of its simplicity. The first time I heard Master Sheng Yen speak,
he was talking about these everyday things. It was a general public
lecture and it was very ordinary. He didn't talk about anything special,
nothing deep but yet, there was deepness in the simplicity. It all fit;
it made sense. Today, because
of the type of class I'm teaching you, I'm teaching you the origin of
our school. By going into this and diving in very deep into Prajnaparamita, I want to bring you back out in a simple way to say, “See, that wasn't so bad!”

So
don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid of dying okay? She got over it. She
was very afraid to die but now she’s doing much better. Why, because she
practices. She sees things that are much more important than that.
Actually Master Sheng Yen said, “Why are you all afraid of dying? He
goes “It’s like a car. You’re trading in an old car for a new car.”
Pretty good deal; don't be
afraid of that. Except for Christians, Christians I say, “you have to
practice harder because you only get one chance.” (laughs…)

Will continue on with the Sutra:

“Suppose
a buddha dwells in the world for an eon or more, and just as it would
be one Buddha world realm, there were immeasurable limitless buddhas
like sand grains of the Ganges River. Then suppose each buddha for an
eon or more expounded the Dharma without rest…”

Imagine
the Ganges River and for each grain of sand in the Ganges River there
is a Buddha that for an eon or uncountable years is expounding on the
Dharma and all of these Buddhas are not resting day or night, and
they’re delivering sentient being, imagine how much time and how old the
Buddha would that be? And in all of that here's the payoff:

“…each
crossing over innumerable sentient beings to enter Nirvana, like the
sand grains of the Ganges River. Still, the realm of the sentient beings
would neither increase nor decrease.”

The realm of the sentient being will neither increase nor decrease; anybody have any
problem with that? Confusion? Come on! I saw you.

Student: Very interesting, usually we say there’s the relative and the absolute and the relative is empty.

Gilbert: Say that again what you just said!

Student:
Usually we just say there’s a relative and the absolute and the
relative is empty. We just say there are no sentient beings. You were
saying that there were countless Buddhas, countless years, countless
sentient beings, the realm of sentient beings does not increase or
decrease. That’s kind of like the mobius strip, falling back into
itself.

Gilbert:
Quite so. You just fell in the void. It has to be that way. If you look
at it as a mathematical equation, it has to be that way. When you see
the beauty of this Sutra, it just knocks you flat like “What??? If you
have all these Buddhas and they’re all working and talking about the
Dharma for all these countless times and they don’t increase or decrease
the sentient beings,
this is obviously a different mind we’re using here. Using the mind,
the true nature or self-nature of mind, it works. It cannot be other
than that.

That
would not work because then you have this long line of sentient beings,
“Stop, stop!!! There’s no more room in Nirvana. We have to wait till
some people leave, so you could come in.” But it’s not that way. Let’s
continue:

“The
world realms of the buddhas in the ten directions are also such as
this: each buddha expounds the Dharma teaching of transformation, each
crossing over innumerable sentient beings to enter Nirvana, like the
sand grains of the Ganges River, and yet the realm of the sentient
beings neither increases nor decreases. Why? A fixed appearance of
sentient beings cannot be grasped and for this reason, the realm of the
sentient beings neither increases nor decreases.”

Now
let me give you something very interesting here if that wasn’t
interesting enough.
This was from a dialogue that Master Sheng Yen had with his holiness,
the Dalai Lama. There was a question that was asked of him and his
answer was beautiful. He’s saying to Master Sheng Yen, “Shifu, what is
being negated in the context of the understanding of emptiness? What
exactly is being empty? What is true suchness?” He’s saying that in the
concept of emptiness, what is being negated? What exactly is being
empty? What is true suchness?

Master
Sheng Yen replied, “Emptiness means being free from the two extremes of
existence and mere nothingness.” Emptiness means being free from the
two extremes of existence and mere nothingness, nor is one attached to
the middle. That is the Middle Way, the teaching of Madhyamaka.

“As
for true suchness, it is a teaching from the consciousness only and the
Tathagata Schools. It is very simple to understand true suchness when
you truly understand vexation. Vexation is not different from true
suchness. Foolish people are enmeshed in all kinds of afflictions all
the time and do not recognize them nor cannot know true suchness. If you
know your own negative afflictions
very well, then you are in accordance with true suchness. When all
afflictions including subtle vexations have been eliminated, that is
Buddhahood. So I have to say that vexation is true suchness. Without
afflictions, or vexations, true suchness has no existence. True suchness
is merely a conventional name (this may be very difficult to
understand).”

I
had to laugh at that; he really laid it out. This is very deep but it
is also simple because one who has vexations is no different than the
Buddha. The mind is the same. The mind that rises up this vexation
occurs within mind – paticcasamutpada,
causes and conditions never fail. When one sees these afflictions and
one sees the root cause of these afflictions as Master Sheng Yen was
talking about, the very subtle, the very subtle being, that root cause
is the ego, personality, or life and being. This is very very deep in
there, beyond us trying to polish up the self.

That
is true suchness. It is the way things are. It’s just the way things
happen - the idea of vexation and true suchness being Buddhamind, and
sentient beings delivered or not delivered, increased or decreased. It
cannot. It cannot, yet all of these things belong to mind. How can we
say the mind is bigger or smaller? It doesn't make sense. We continue
back with Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra:

So
what he’s saying is that if this realm of sentient beings neither
increases nor decreases, then what's that all about? Who is he saving
then and why is he trying to get this deep wisdom? Remember that in the
context, the Sariputra represented the Theravada Abhidharma -
everything is real. Now he’s scratching his head going, “Wait a second
here, I got you on this one because if it neither increases nor
decreases, and you're saying you're making a vow to deliver sentient
beings, innumerable sentient beings, then how does that work? It’s a
good question.

Manjusri
said, “If sentient beings are each empty of characteristics, then there
is no bodhisattva seeking Anuttara Samyaksambodhi, and likewise no
sentient being to whom he expounds the Dharma. Why? I say that amongst
all dharmas, there is not even a single dharma which may be grasped.”

Can you grasp it? I grasped this paper but come back five years from now and see if
I’m still grasping this paper. I hope not.

At
that time the Buddha said to Manjusri, “If there are no sentient
beings, then why do you speak of sentient beings, and even of a realm of
sentient beings?” Manjusri said, “The appearance of the realm of
sentient beings is like the realm of buddhas.”

This
is very interesting because whenever the Buddha would ask him a
question or someone asked a question about the Buddha, Manjusri, with
his mirror-like wisdom, was able to reflect it back and push it back on
them with his own question which was impregnated with the answer saying,
“Do you really want to go any further with this? Is this the way it is?
All these realms of the Buddha, are those real?” That if you're saying
that the sentient being realms are real, then the buddha realms are real
as well.

He
was again asked, “Does the realm of sentient beings have a limit? He
replied saying,
“The limit of the realm of sentient beings is like the limit of the
realm of the buddhas. The Buddha again asked, “Does the limit of the
realm of sentient beings exist in any place?”

Now
is trying to pin him down saying, “Ah, if they exist there is no
emptiness.” If there is no emptiness, the whole equation fails.

He
replied saying, “The limit of the realm of sentient beings is
inconceivable.” He was again asked, “Do you abide in the appearance of
the realm of the sentient beings?” He replied saying, “Sentient beings
do not abide, so it is similar to the abiding of empty space.”

Now
again, he negates the idea of this ultimate emptiness, and the idea of
sentient
beings abiding anywhere, thereby establishing the true suchness or you
could say this emptiness. Again this emptiness is not the emptiness that
there's nothing in the can.

The Buddha spoke to Manjusri saying, “When cultivating Prajnaparamita thusly, how should one abide in Prajnaparamita?”

He’s saying how should one abide in this deep understanding?

Manjusri said, “Not abiding in dharmas is abiding in Prajnaparamita.”

Again this echoes paticcasamuppada -
causes and conditions never fail. So as we see things, we see precisely
how mind is working. There's no abiding because it's constantly
changing. Mind not abiding in the dharma, not clinging to them; it is
clearly seeing how mind works.

The Buddha again asked Manjusri, “Why do you say that not abiding in dharmas is abiding
in Prajnaparamita?” Manjusri said, “Not abiding in appearances is itself abiding in Prajnaparamita.” The Buddha spoke to Manjusri again saying, “When abiding in Prajnaparamita thusly, do one's good roots increase or decrease?”

He’s saying that if you're going like this, do you have good karma roots?

Manjusri said, “If one is able to abide in Prajnaparamita
thusly, then one’s good roots neither increase nor decrease, just as
all dharmas neither increase nor decrease, and the characteristic of the
nature of Prajnaparamita likewise neither increases nor decreases. Bhagavan, cultivating Prajnaparamita thusly is not abandoning the dharmas of ordinary beings, nor is it grasping the dharmas of the noble ones.”

What
he is trying to get to the point is it's not abandoning the phenomena
of ordinary sentient beings. It is seeing it clearly as it is, just like
what Shifu said, “If you understand your vexations, it is true
suchness.” It's there. It fits perfectly. It's not something difficult
to understand, just let go of the conceptual thinking.

“Why? Prajnaparamita
does not perceive the existence of a dharma which may be grasped or abandoned. Cultivating Prajnaparamita thusly
is also not seeing Nirvana to delight in, nor birth or death to
despise. Why? One does not perceive birth and death, much less something
to leave behind. One does not perceive Nirvana, much less something to
delight in. Cultivating Prajnaparamita
thusly is perceiving neither impurity nor affliction which may be
abandoned, nor perceiving merits which may be obtained. Regarding all
dharmas, the mind is without increase or decrease. Why? One does not
perceive the existence of increase and decrease in the Dharma Realm.(Dharma Realm, the Dharmakaya)Bhagavan, if one is capable of practicing thusly, then this is called cultivating Prajnaparamita.”

will leave it right there, any questions? This gives you a different
way of looking
at things, and as we begin to see this, then we begin to see where
practice is at. We begin to see how we apply this to our meditation.
When you are sitting there in your meditation, then mind should be aware
that the “you” is there and why it’s there and it will not abide or
hold on to that sense of self, or ego, or life in being. As we have
notions of self, mind can perfectly reflect that. And that begins to cut
the subtle vexations or the primary vexations of our mind. Initially,
it's easy for us to see the secondary vexation, but to see the deep
vexations requires a quietness of not abiding.